Lightly Huy’s mind touched upon the thought of the grisly old hags who lived along the harbour front, whose job it was to rectify such blunders. Instantly he rejected the idea.
‘No.’ He spoke aloud, and then listened to the sound of Tanith’s breathing, hoping he had not woken her. He began to moderate his plans, perhaps it was not necessary for such radical action, perhaps he could arrange for another shrine to be consecrated in a remote area of the kingdom, and there, away from prying eyes and busy tongues, she could bear his son. It would be simple enough to find a foster mother, someone he could trust. There were many of the veterans of his legion, men maimed in battle, now living the simple life on one of Huy’s estates. Men who would lie and steal and cheat and die for him. Men with fruitful wives, whose breasts were fat and full enough to feed another little lodger.
There they could go as often as the opportunity arose to be with their son. He could imagine it already, the happiness and the laughter, and his son kicking and gurgling, fat-bellied in the sunlight.
Stealthily Huy reached beneath the bed covers, lightly his hand settled on Tanith’s naked belly and he began to explore it.
‘You cannot feel anything yet,’ Tanith whispered, ‘I didn’t do the things the priestesses taught me. That was very wicked of me, wasn’t it? Are you angry with me, my lord?’
‘No,’ said Huy. ‘I am very pleased with you.’
‘I thought you would be,’ chuckled Tanith contentedly, and snuggled against him, and then she added drowsily, ‘I mean, once you got used to the idea.’
The knocking and shouting woke them both and Huy bounded from the couch and snatched up the vulture axe before he was properly awake. Once the initial confusion had quieted, and the house slaves had satisfied themselves by shouted challenge and loud reply that the midnight callers were a contingent of the royal guard, Huy put aside the axe and lit another lamp.
‘Holy Father.’ One of the body slaves pounded on the door of the bedchamber.
‘What is it?’
‘The king’s guard. The Cry-Lion cannot sleep. He bids you take your lute and attend him.’
Huy sat on the edge of the couch and cursed softly but meaningfully, running his fingers through his beard and curls, trying to knuckle the sleep from his eyes.
‘Did you hear me, Holiness?’
‘I heard you.’ growled Huy.
“The Gry-Lion said that they were to accept no excuse, and to wait while you dressed, and to escort you to the palace.‘
Huy stood up and reached for his tunic, but held his hand as he saw Tanith watching him. Her eyes were enormous in the lamp light, and with her hair in cloudy disorder she looked like a child. Huy lifted the bed clothes and slipped in beside her.
‘Tell the king that my picking finger is sore, my throat is raw, my lute strings are broken - and I am drunk,’ he shouted, and took Tanith in his arms.
Sheikh Hassan rinsed his fingers in the silver bowl and dried them on a square of silk.
‘He seeks to impress us with his show of strength,’ Omar, his younger brother, murmured. Hassan glanced at him. His brother was a famous dandy. His beard was washed and perfumed and combed until it glistened, his robes were of the finest silk and his slippers and vest were heavy with embroidery of silk and gold thread. On his finger he wore a pigeon’s-blood ruby the size of the top joint of a man’s thumb. He was misty-eyed from the bhang pipe beside him on the cushions. A dandy perhaps, and a pederast certainly, but nevertheless the possessor of a fine mind and an intuitive perception upon which Hassan relied heavily.
They sat together beneath the ancient fig tree with its widespread branches and its deep dark shade. The dhow that had brought them to this meeting was beached on the white sand of the island below them, and from their vantage point they could look across the channels and sandbanks and slow pools of the great river to the north bank.
There were troops of sea-cow lying on the sandbanks half submerged in the shallows. Huge grey shapes, like river boulders upon which the white egrets perched unconcernedly.
On the north bank a thin ribbon of dark green vegetation grew along the river, but gave way immediately to the bare brown hills beyond. The country here had a blasted and desolate look to it. The hills were bleak and barren with rounded crests. The earth showed through the sparse dry grass, and the dead trees writhed and held their naked branches to the sky, trees drought-stricken and long dead.
However, as the sheikhs watched so the scene changed. Over the hills spread a dark shadow as though a storm cloud had blotted out the sun.
‘Yes,’ said Omar. ‘This show is to open our ears to his words.’
Hassan spat a stream of bright red juice into the dust, and wiped his beard with silk as he watched the bare hills come to life, watched the dark shadow spread. He had never before seen such a vast concourse of humanity. The regiments and squadrons moved into orderly ranks until they covered the hills. Hassan was nervous, but his face was calm, his eyes grave and only the long brown fingers that fidgeted on the jewelled hilt of his dagger betrayed his disquiet. He had not expected anything like this. He had come to this place expecting to discuss trade and mutual boundaries with the new black emperor who had emerged out of that mysterious and little-known land beyond the river. Instead he had found himself confronted with one of the largest armies the world had ever seen assembled. He wondered if Alexander himself had ever commanded such a multitude.
Omar drew on his bhang pipe, held the smoke and then let it trickle thinly from his nostrils.
‘He seeks to impress us,’ he repeated, and Hassan’s reply was brusque.
‘If that is his intention, then he succeeds. I am impressed.’
Still the regiments came pouring over the skyline in thick but orderly columns. They wheeled and fell into the pattern of the whole as though a single mind directed them, the way shoals of fish or flights of migrating birds react to unspoken commands. Indeed, this seemed to be not a gathering of individuals but a single organism, sprawling but well coordinated. Hassan watched it and shivered in the noon heat of the valley.
